Being Ernest

Ernest Hillier was a hopeless romantic. Born in England in Victorian times he yearned to break the straitjacket of polite society...to live life to the full, to love, to dream.

His weapon of choice was chocolate. Ernest knew that chocolate reaches parts of the human soul that other foods cannot, and he knew that there was a wide world outside closeted Albion which had the open minds, hearts and imaginations which chocolate could unleash and launch forth.

Ernest set out from the olde world to the new. He settled in San Francisco and created a chain of restaurants. Unfortunately these were wiped out by the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906.Undaunted – and inspired by a particularly flavoursome choc mint – he took his family and possessions even further into the new world and reached first Sydney where he opened a Soda Shop where he made his first chocolates in 1914.

Pitt Street Soda Shop

Soon after he moved to Melbourne where he perceived that the unbridled spirit of the Eureka Stockade would better appreciate the finesse and subtlety of the world’s finest chocolates.

In Melbourne Ernest Hillier established Hillier’s Confectionary Company, purveyors of the finest courverture chocolates and today the company is the longest continuously operating confectioneer in Australia.

Ernest was anything but earnest.

Ernest loved life...and life loved him back...through chocolate. To Ernest chocolate was love. “God’s gift to taste” according to Ernest. Ernest told his team “I wasted time looking for the perfect chocolate. I didn’t find it so I created the perfect chocolate”. A glorious guilt-free box of pure pleasure.